The Logic of Hegel · Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
B.--APPEARANCE.
When our religious consciousness, resting upon the authority of the Church, teaches us that God created the world by His almighty will, that He guides the stars in their courses, and vouchsafes to all His creatures their existence and their well-being, the question Why? is still left to answer. Now it is the answer to this question which forms the common task of empirical science and of philosophy. When religion refuses to recognise this problem, or the right to put it, and appeals to the unsearchableness of the decrees of God, it is taking up the same agnostic ground as is taken by the mere Enlightenment of understanding. Such an appeal is no better than an arbitrary dogmatism, which contravenes the express command of Christianity, to know God in spirit and in truth, and is prompted by a humility which is not Christian, but born of ostentatious bigotry. 137.] Force is a whole, which is in its own self negative self-relation; and as such a whole it continually pushes itself off from itself and puts itself forth. But since this reflection-into-another (corresponding to the distinction between the Parts of the Whole) is equally a reflection-into-self, this out-putting is the way and means by which Force that returns back into itself is as a Force. The very act of out-putting accordingly sets in abeyance the diversity of the two sides which is found in this correlation, and expressly states the identity which virtually constitutes their content. The truth of Force and utterance therefore is that relation, in which the two sides are distinguished only as Outward and Inward.
138.] (γ) The Inward (Interior) is the ground, when it stands as the mere form of the one side of the Appearance and the Correlation,--the empty form of reflection-into-self. As a counterpart to it stands the Outward (Exterior),--Existence, also as the form of the other side of the correlation, with the empty characteristic of reflection-into-something-else. But Inward and Outward are identified: and their identity is identity brought to fulness in the content, that unity of reflection-into-self and reflection-into-other which was forced to appear in the movement of force. Both are the same one totality, and this unity makes them the content. 139.] In the first place then, Exterior is the same content as Interior. What is inwardly is also found outwardly, and _vice versâ._ The appearance shows nothing that is not in the essence, and in the essence there is nothing but what is manifested. 140.] In the second place, Inward and Outward, as formal terms, are also reciprocally opposed, and that thoroughly. The one is the abstraction of identity with self; the other, of mere multiplicity or reality. But as stages of the one form, they are essentially identical: so that whatever is at first explicitly put only in the one abstraction, is also as plainly and at one step only in the other. Therefore what is only internal is also only external: and what is only external, is so far only at first internal.
It is the customary mistake of reflection to take the essence to be merely the interior. If it be so taken, even this way of looking at it is purely external, and that sort of essence is the empty external abstraction. Ins Innere der Natur Dringt sein erschaffner Geist, Zu glücklich wenn er nur Die äußere Schaale weist.[1] It ought rather to have been said that, if the essence of nature is ever described as the inner part, the person who so describes it only knows its outer shell. In Being as a whole, or even in mere sense-perception, the notion is at first only an inward, and for that very reason is something external to Being, a subjective thinking and being, devoid of truth.--In Nature as well as in Mind, so long as the notion, design, or law are at first the inner capacity, mere possibilities, they are first only an external, inorganic nature, the knowledge of a third person, alien force, and the like. As a man is outwardly, that is to say in his actions (not of course in his merely bodily outwardness), so is he inwardly: and if his virtue, morality, &c. are only inwardly his,--that is if they exist only in his intentions and sentiments, and his outward acts are not identical with them, the one half of him is as hollow and empty as the other.
The relation of Outward and Inward unites the two relations that precede, and at the same time sets in abeyance mere relativity and phenomenality in general. Yet so long as understanding keeps the Inward and Outward fixed in their separation, they are empty forms, the one as null as the other. Not only in the study of nature, but also of the spiritual world, much depends on a just appreciation of the relation of inward and outward, and especially on avoiding the misconception that the former only is the essential point on which everything turns, while the latter is unessential and trivial. We find this mistake made when, as is often done, the difference between nature and mind is traced back to the abstract difference between inner and outer. As for nature, it certainly is in the gross external, not merely to the mind, but even on its own part. But to call it external 'in the gross' is not to imply an abstract externality--for there is no such thing. It means rather that the Idea which forms the common content of nature and mind, is found in nature as outward only, and for that very reason only inward. The abstract understanding, with its 'Either--or,' may struggle against this conception of nature. It is none the less obviously found in our other modes of consciousness, particularly in religion. It is the lesson of religion that nature, no less than the spiritual world, is a revelation of God: but with this distinction, that while nature never gets so far as to be conscious of its divine essence, that consciousness is the express problem of the mind, which in the matter of that problem is as yet finite. Those who look upon the essence of nature as mere inwardness, and therefore inaccessible to us, take up the same line as that ancient creed which regarded God as envious and jealous; a creed which both Plato and Aristotle pronounced against long ago. All that God is, He imparts and reveals; and He does so, at first, in and through nature.
Any object indeed is faulty and imperfect when it is only inward, and thus at the same time only outward, or, (which is the same thing,) when it is only an outward and thus only an inward. For instance, a child, taken in the gross as human being, is no doubt a rational creature; but the reason of the child as child is at first a mere inward, in the shape of his natural ability or vocation, &c. This mere inward, at the same time, has for the child the form of a more outward, in the shape of the will of his parents, the attainments of his teachers, and the whole world of reason that environs him. The education and instruction of a child aim at making him actually and for himself what he is at first potentially and therefore for others, viz. for his grown-up friends. The reason, which at first exists in the child only as an inner possibility, is actualised through education: and conversely, the child by these means becomes conscious that the goodness, religion, and science which he had at first looked upon as an outward authority, are his own and inward nature. As with the child so it is in this matter with the adult, when, in opposition to his true destiny, his intellect and will remain in the bondage of the natural man. Thus, the criminal sees the punishment to which he has to submit as an act of violence from without: whereas in fact the penalty is only the manifestation of his own criminal will.
From what has now been said, we may learn what to think of a man who, when blamed for his shortcomings, it may be, his discreditable acts, appeals to the (professedly) excellent intentions and sentiments of the inner self he distinguishes therefrom. There certainly may be individual cases, where the malice of outward circumstances frustrates well-meant designs, and disturbs the execution of the best-laid plans. But in general even here the essential unity between inward and outward is maintained. We are thus justified in saying that a man is what he does; and the lying vanity which consoles itself with the feeling of inward excellence, may be confronted with the words of the gospel: 'By their fruits ye shall know them.' That grand saying applies primarily in a moral and religious aspect, but it also holds good in reference to performances in art and science. The keen eye of a teacher who perceives in his pupil decided evidences of talent, may lead him to state his opinion that a Raphael or a Mozart lies hidden in the boy: and the result will show how far such an opinion was well-founded.
But if a daub of a painter, or a poetaster, soothe themselves by the conceit that their head is full of high ideals, their consolation is a poor one; and if they insist on being judged not by their actual works but by their projects, we may safely reject their pretensions as unfounded and unmeaning. The converse case however also occurs. In passing judgment on men who have accomplished something great and good, we often make use of the false distinction between inward and outward. All that they have accomplished, we say, is outward merely; inwardly they were acting from some very different motive, such as a desire to gratify their vanity or other unworthy passion. This is the spirit of envy. Incapable of any great action of its own, envy tries hard to depreciate greatness and to bring it down to its own level. Let us, rather, recall the fine expression of Goethe, that there is no remedy but Love against great superiorities of others. We may seek to rob men's great actions of their grandeur, by the insinuation of hypocrisy; but, though it is possible that men in an instance now and then may dissemble and disguise a good deal, they cannot conceal the whole of their inner self, which infallibly betrays itself in the _decursus vitae._ Even here it is true that a man is nothing but the series of his actions.
What is called the 'pragmatic' writing of history has in modern times frequently sinned in its treatment of great historical characters, and defaced and tarnished the true conception of them by this fallacious separation of the outward from the inward. Not content with telling the unvarnished tale of the great acts which have been wrought by the heroes of the world's history, and with acknowledging that their inward being corresponds with the import of their acts, the pragmatic historian fancies himself justified and even obliged to trace the supposed secret motives that lie behind the open facts of the record. The historian, in that case, is supposed to write with more depth in proportion as he succeeds in tearing away the aureole from all that has been heretofore held grand and glorious, and in depressing it, so far as its origin and proper significance are concerned, to the level of vulgar mediocrity. To make these pragmatical researches in history easier, it is usual to recommend the study of psychology, which is supposed to make us acquainted with the real motives of human actions.
The psychology in question however is only that petty knowledge of men, which looks away from the essential and permanent in human nature to fasten its glance on the casual and private features shown in isolated instincts and passions. A pragmatical psychology ought at least to leave the historian, who investigates the motives at the ground of great actions, a choice between the 'substantial' interests of patriotism, justice, religious truth and the like, on the one hand, and the subjective and 'formal' interests of vanity, ambition, avarice and the like, on the other. The latter however are the motives which must be viewed by the pragmatist as really efficient, otherwise the assumption of a contrast between the inward (the disposition of the agent) and the outward (the import of the action) would fall to the ground. But inward and outward have in truth the same content; and the right doctrine is the very reverse of this pedantic judicially. If the heroes of history had been actuated by subjective and formal interests alone, they would never have accomplished what they have. And if we have due regard to the unity between the inner and the outer, we must own that great men willed what they did, and did what they willed. 141.] The empty abstractions, by means of which the one identical content perforce continues in the two correlatives, suspend themselves in the immediate transition, the one in the other. The content is itself nothing but their identity (§ 138): and these abstractions are the seeming of essence, put as seeming. By the manifestation of force the inward is put into existence: but this putting is the mediation by empty abstractions. In its own self the intermediating process vanishes to the immediacy, in which the inward and the outward are absolutely identical and their difference is distinctly no more than assumed and imposed. This identity is Actuality.
Ideas discussed in this chapter
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